Tag Archives: community

I hate Community Management

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27

People’s “relationships” are emergent and thus can’t be managed. That is, they can be influenced but not controlled.
[ via Charlie Ehin ]

a.k.a. Why I Think ‘manager’ is the worst word to follow the word ‘community’

I prefer the phrase Community Cultivation and try to map all tasks and skills against gardening metaphors:

  • planting seeds
  • mindfulness about environmental factors
  • neighborhood kids who like to kick over the tomatoes
  • too much water is bad
  • not enough water is bad
  • fallow fields
  • weeding
  • harvest time
  • sharing with and helping the neighbors
  • getting up early
  • canning

What would you add to the list?
or What metaphors do you use?

Sustainable

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As the lenten season approaches, my thoughts are shifting towards sustainability. Yet, I’m surrounded by a world burdened with the very opposite concern. I have found hope in a recent thread of personal interest and study called Value Network Analysis. The following post crested for me at the intersection of lent, a work situation, and my dissatisfaction with the status quo:

Maximization is not the same as optimzation. It is not a temporal or
differential property. Optimization is harmonious and fragile. There
IS a very diffiicult shift for people. 20st Century b-school and mgmt
always urged ‘maximize’ profits or ‘maximize’ production. All the
firms pursing those strategies are gone. It is just not sustainable.
Malignant cancer alway will get you in the end unless treated and
brought back from a maximal state.

[ via Value Networks |
Google Groups ]

Wondering how I can arrange for Optimization rather than Maximization…

hoosgot

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2

My comment on Dave’s post about his new experiment called hoosgot.com. You can read their about page to learn more about the service, but basically it makes it really easy to ask a whole ton of people (the whole intarnets essentially) a question you are too lazy to answer yourself. Great idea. Great implementation of asking the question. We have yet to see how effective it will be at actually getting your question answered.

This was my comment to Dave:

I ran across doc’s post first, and posted this same thought there:

“The problem with the lazyweb is, well, it’s lazy. I’m inclined to believe that people need a champion or a deeply-seeded cause to invest enough into a technology to fuel its survival.”

I think hoosgot is a great idea, and I hope it succeeds. And your desire to “see how the data flows” leaves an impression on me. I do think, that there are several features that will need to be added to the service to overcome the ‘lazy’ aspect.

It’s easy to ask the questions. This services makes it easier to ask the question than any other service out there. But, currently, there is no motivation to answer.